Thursday, August 6, 2009

Leg Three: How Two Arab Men Robbed The Sleep From My Eyes

I changed the title a bit. I think its a bit more poetic this way.

I got on the bus, hopeful that this time I'd be able to sit next to an individual of my choosing. There were three (2 guys and a girl) friendly-looking Swedes getting on the bus with me and hope filled me like a balloon. But, alas, alack, it was not to be so, and my dreams were soon deflated. {Lesson #1: Never hope.}

WAHID: When I found my seat, I discovered in the window seat a sweat-and-smoke smelling Arab man who took up his seat and half of mine. And I was seated across from the Swedish girl. Why couldn't we have been seated next to each other? Turns out, she might not have been the best company - she slept the whole time (God knows how). Once I sat down I began to notice certain things about the man I was to sit with for the next 7 hours. {Lesson 2: Don't judge.} He had winding tattoos through his inner forearms, immediately on top of which were an excessive number (16 or 17 per arm?) of terrifying scars that made him look like he had been slashed a number of times with a thick blade up and down his forearms. I had various theories about him throughout the night. At first I thought he was had been a political prisoner somewhere and had been tortured. Then I saw him looking at his phone and pictures of his kids, and thought "aww" he must have been a troubled teen but his good heart won out and saved him from the streets. Then, when we stopped for the first time [there were 3 or 4...can't remember], he bought food. Every time he cracked a bottle or a bag of Chipsy open, he offered its contents to me first. So I thought maybe he was a drug addict and used food to replace his habit (remember, he was taking up 1/2-2/3 of my seat in addition to his own). Then he told me about himself. He's Jordanian, and, just so you know, in Jordan they have better tea. Other than that, I didn't understand a whole lot, but he talked on anyway. He also managed to sleep a lot, but still manage to touch me with his leg or arm at most times. I initially attributed this behavior to his bulk, but soon decided that there were probably other contributing factors. That was creepy man the first.

ITNAYN: So there was this guy sitting next to the Swedish girl at the widow opposite me. We made eye contact early in the trip, and I had allowed myself to smile because he looked normal. When I say he looked normal I mean he was wearing a polo shirt, dress(ish) shoes, and sported a glorious mustache. But when he smiled back at me -- he was missing a front tooth. This story gets better. Around 3:30am we stop (either the 2nd or 3rd stop, but I was really happy to stop because Jordanian Tatoo Scars was bumping up against me and was becoming slightly more than uncomfortable) and I walk around, used the bathroom (I really should, though probably won't, write a blog post just about the bathrooms I experienced between Alex and Jerusalem), and stood around for a while. I happened to be standing around this guy, lets call him Osama, because that was his name, and I asked him, since we'd been chillin' for a while, if he thought that there was still time for tea. {Lesson #3: I can be stupid.} He took this as an invitation to tea. So we sat and sort of talked. He told me he was a computer engineer (I believed him at the time, but when the passport inspector came on board our bus he told him something else...so yeah. {Lesson #4: People Lie.}) He asked me if I was married, I said no, but I had was engaged to a boy in America (I change this story all the time), and showed him my ring. He paid for my tea anyway and told me I was beautiful and I wanted to scream "I'M NOT BEAUTIFUL, I'M WHITE!" Then, as we were walking back to the bus he asked me if I had e-mail. I straight up told him "No, I don't have email, sorry." I wanted to scream "HA! TAKE THAT SKETCHY MAN!". And then he said he wanted to see me again, and I said, "Well I don't know where I'll be in the future (I should have used one of our catch phrases for the summer: "you can't a'arif the mustakbal" or "you can't know the future", but I think that would have given him too much false hope.) He got what I was silently screaming by the end, though: "THIS IS NOT HAPPENING FOR YOU, GIVE UP AND GO AWAY". {Lesson #5: If you scream loud enough in your head, sometimes people can hear you.} And that was creepy man the second.

To escape Jordanian Tatoo Scars and Osama, I tried to listen to music. But my headphones were broken. Life was rough. But its better now, and this is a song that a friend/former security guard of mine from Tel Aviv just posted on The Book of Face. He made the video because the song, by Asaf Amdurski, didn't have a video to go with it on youtube. I think the song is called "Mayan" which means "Spring". I hopefully will be hiking to one on the morrow with some friends. Oh and I felt it was an appropriate song because I went to a 40-year anniversary celebration of Woodstock last night near Gan Soccer. You'll understand what I mean once you take a peek. Woodstock Revival wasn't very exciting...but this video is.